Good News and Bad News

The Good News:

Last night I had my first adventure in blocking lace. I used the 40% off Joanne coupon to buy a blocking board, and it arrived just in time to do the sleeves of Glasgow Lace. Here is a shot taken halfway through pinning the second sleeve.

It had an egg-crate texture before blocking, but now I am thrilled with the way the lace looks.

The Bad News:

The sleeves are freaking huge.HUGE!At first I thought “whatever, sleeves knit flat always look gigantic before they’re sown up, they’re twice as wide as a normal sleeve, duh.” Then I actually used my brain and said “hold on, these sleeves will be 8 inches wide when sown up.Are any of your other sleeves 8 inches wide?”No, no they’re not, and with good reason.

I made two critical errors, one in knitting and one in thinking.First, when I brought the lace pattern all the way to the edge, I didn’t think of how the gauge would differ between lace and stockinette.As it turns out, the lace is significantly wider.Second, I made the wrong size. I don’t remember why I thought that making the 46.5 inch size was a good idea, but clearly I did at some point.No offense to those ladies who do make that size, but it simply is not the size for me.I have a 42 inch bust, and this is not a sweater that calls for a ton of ease. I should make the 43 inch size.If I wasn’t so down on my body all the time I might realize that I can handle a sweater made in my size, but I won’t bore you with that rant right now.

Good News Again:

I cast on for the body immediately after pinning the sleeves, and I will not repeat the same mistakes!

I can’t bear to rip the sleeves out just yet, and they will come in handy.I’ll be playing around with the shaping for the body, but I haven’t decided exactly how yet. Now I can play around with larger pieces of the finished fabric, and plan the shaping a bit better.

Here, you can see the sleeves laid on top of a finished sweater that I like.If I decrease every 6th row six times, then increase every 6th row again, I’ll get the same slope I had on the ill-fated sleeves.I think it’ll work.